Friday, October 2, 2009

The Pablove Across America experience will be documented in video blog form, and it will live on pablove.org. Please drop the URL into your favorites list. Please make it a destination, the way you made the Pablog a morning read beginning in May 2008.

Our intention is to bring you on the road with us, so you feel like you're hanging with us in Gulf Shores, Alabama, or St Francisville, Louisana, or Austin, Texas. We'll shoot on the bike. We'll shoot behind-the-scenes stuff with our mobile family of Pablovers who have been planning the ride for over two months, and who will keep us healthy, happy and safe as we cross this fine continent.

Most important, our video blogs (vlogs) will embody the purpose and mission, so that all who see them will experience not only what we are doing, but why. Our purpose is to float the balloon of awareness for childhood cancer. I have boiled it down to: kids get cancer, too—and it's not somebody else's problem. People need to hear this simple fact. Then they need to hear that we have a Trojan horse that will carry us inside the city walls of cancer. And that is the Pablove Foundation. I very much believe what my dad taught me years ago: people are willing to help people who help themselves. I'd say that defines us Pablovers quite well. With our hearts full of the relentless joy and passion of Pablo, we are helping ourselves, and our community, grieve deeply, and to make our grief productive.

Pablove Across America is a call for financial support. It is calling equally for the hands-on efforts of the existing Pablove Army to carry out its mission. This hands-on business is being done all around us every day. People volunteering at the office while others race to win an experience on the Pablove eBay auction. Some people are putting together their functions using our new Giftberry tool, a portal that allows anyone to activate a Pablove fundraiser in two clicks. Another friend is gathering names of Wilms' Tumor fighters, so that we can honor one of those brave soldiers in each morning's vlog.

I also want you to know my personal goal in doing this. I will not get it all down here, so let me start with this: to demonstrate the depth of my commitment to change, and my commitment to the mission of the Pablove Foundation. The physically grueling aspect of carrying Pablove Across America may soften the hurt in my heart. It may wring a bit of the emptiness and sadness out of my soul. That is my hope. All of this is wrapped in my endless love for PABLO. This ride, for me, is an offering to Pablo, whose spirit is with me every second of every day. I HAVE to show my little boy how far I will go to display my love for him. And to show him that even though his physical body is gone, I will continue to kick ass in his name. I HAVE TO DO THIS.

If you have not yet checked out the vlogs on pablove.org, please do. Dangerbird video master Mike Mohan has put a lot of effort into stating our purpose in the run-up to the October 10 start date. Some videos are fun, some are serious. Some show the people at Dangerbird HQ who have lead the charge to create and market this massive endeavor. We'll continue to build on this massive pastiche. It's been fun.

I'm heading to Pablo's school, The Oaks. He would have been in the first month of kindergarten today. At this morning's school assembly, Pablo's favorite book, 'Christopher's Harvest Time,' will be inscribed to Pablo, and dedicated to the school library. Generations of Oaks kids will know Pablo from the words written about him on the inside flap of the book. I'm told that the kindergarten class—which includes many of his friends from The Walther School—will sing a song in memory of him. I'm weeping. And I'm still sitting at the dining room table. Better grab a box of tissue.